Professional Documents
Culture Documents
by NDG Method
for Gears Ranging from
Miniature to Super-Large
Masatoshi Yuzaki
This is an interesting concept and should be of While the conventional instruments go back to basics and
interest to your readers. measure normal to the tooth surface at the base circle tan-
Robert E. Smith gent, (the authors) NDG method has the probe moving in a
direction that is not normal to the surface. He therefore has
Robert E. Smith is president of R.E. Smith & Co. Inc., a to make a correction to all measurements involving the co-
gear consultancy in Rochester, NY. A mechanical engineer, sine of the transverse pressure angle. However, that is not
he has more than 60 years experience in the gear industry. a problem. Gear measurements on a CMM-type instrument
He is chairman of the AGMA Calibration Committee and was have to be corrected in a similar way to the surface normals.
AGMAs ISO delegate for that panel as well as for the AGMA When we established our National Gear Metrology labora-
Inspection and Handbook Committee. Since 1991, he has vol- tory at Oak Ridge, we had them measure artifacts by the first
unteered his services as aGear Technologytechnical editor. principles (TDG) method in order to compare to CMM-type
As Bob was the technical reviewer of this article, we believe measurements that required algorithms for probe corrections.
his comments regarding this papers relevance will be of in- We were satisfied that the results were good and the differ-
terest to readers. (The Editors) ences were insignificant. All artifacts today are measured by
the CMM instruments. In this case, the author did compare
This is an interesting concept and should be of interest measurements by both TDG and NDG systems, on the same
to your readers. As the author points out, it has several advan- gear, and showed the results to be the same. It was done on a
tages over the conventional TDG method. When reducing the gear of approximately 13-inch diameter, but I would expect
X axis movement while checking large-diameter gears, the good results on much larger gears also.In fact, the error, or
potential errors of probe positioning are reduced. Also, the uncertainty of measurement, should be (even) less on larger
instrument can be smaller in that direction. There are definite gears.
advantages to checking small-diameter internal gears, also.
Management Summary
A study was conducted on the development of a CNC gear measuring machine for measuring involute tooth profile
by a new measurement method. Involute tooth profile measurement has been done, until now, by almost always using
two-axis control in which the probe moves only in the X-axis direction synchronously with the gear rotation angle ().
In contrast, the newly developed measurement method uses three-axis control in which the probe moves along the line
of action under control in two orthogonal, axial directions (along the X and Y axes) synchronously with the gear rota-
tion angle ().
This new method enables high-accuracy measurement because the small X-direction movement of the probe reduces
the guaranteed accuracy range and minimizes movement of the probing head gravity center. As probe movement in the X-
direction is unaffected by gear outside diameter, the advantage of the new method over earlier ones is particularly relevant
to the measurement of super-large gears. While conventional measurement methods must use multiple probes to avoid
probe-tooth interference in the measurement of inner gears, the new method uses fewer probes in inner gear measurement
and eliminates the need for an automatic tool changer (ATC). In the case of a small-diameter inner gear (outside circle
diameter of 10mm or less), measurement of tooth profile, helix and pitch deviation can be completed with a one-time set-
ting. A CNC gear measuring system is developed using this new measurement method that provides numerous advantages
over conventional measuring systems.
continued
www.geartechnology.com March/April 2011 GEARTECHNOLOGY 55
Introduction
Almost without exception, conventional dedicated gear
measuring machines measure involute tooth profile by the
two-axis control method: the probe moves only along the X
axis, orthogonal to the axis of rotation synchronously with the
gear rotation angle () (Figs. 12). As it is based on the prin-
ciple of involute tooth profile generation, this conventional
method is quite simple and easy to understand.
However, the working positions in the hobbing machine,
gear shaper, gear grinder and other tooling are almost all near
the center of the gear, and these working positions are very
different from the conventional tooth profile measurement
positions. In the hobbing machine, the tooth cutting position
of the hob cutter moves along the gear line of action while
rotating synchronously with the gear blank (Fig. 3).
The author long questioned the reason for the significant
difference between the working positions during gear machin-
ing and the measurement positions during gear measurement
(tangent to the base circle). This current study grew out of an
intuition that it should work to control the probe movement at
the gear cutting position.
The author will use the term tangential direction gener-
ate method (TDG Method) for the ordinary measurement in
Figure 1Coordinate system of gear measuring machine.
which the probe moves only in the direction tangential to the
base circle (X-axis direction orthogonal to the axis of rota-
Y tion), and the term normal direction generate method (NDG
Method [patent applied]), for the new measurement method
in which the probe moves along the lines of action (X and Y
axes orthogonal to the axis of rotation).
Normal Direction Generate Method (NDG Method)
X
Amount of probe movement. As seen in Figure 3, the
NDG Method measures tooth profile as the probe is moved
Base Circle
along the line of action in the same way as the hob cutter dur-
ing tooth cutting. The probe moves in the direction of touch-
Figure 2Typical tooth form measurement. ing the base circle, and the principle of involute tooth profile
Figure 2Typical tooth form measurement
generation is exactly the same as in the TDG Method.
Measurement of a standard gear without any profile shift
(whose height of the involute tooth profile portion is one mod-
ule on both the addendum side and the dedendum side) by the
La Ld NDG Method gives La = Ld = m/tant (mm), where La and Ld
are the amounts of probe X-axis direction movement from the
Y axis passing through the gear center on the addendum side
Line of Action and the dedendum side, respectively; m is the module (mm),
Hob cutter
and t is the transverse pressure angle. When t = 20, La =
Ld 2.7 m. Measurement is the same for the right and left
tooth faces. Thus the amount of probe movement in the NDG
Method is independent of the number of gear teeth and diam-
eter of the reference circle.
X On the contrary, the amount of X-axis direction probe
movement in the TDG Method is approximately proportional
to the reference circle diameter (Fig. 4) and given by:
Base Circle
Ll = Lr = 0.5 z m (1 + 2 / z )2 cos 2 t
t A graph representing (Ll + Lr ) when m = 10 mm is shown
in Figure 5. The amount of X-axis direction probe movement
increases with the diameter of the reference circle. A machine
capable of measuring a super-large gear like that in Figure 6
using the TDG method is therefore very difficult to build.
Figure Figure
3Tooth form measurement
3Tooth by NDG
form measurement Method.
by NDG-Method Measurement error. While probe movement is solely in
56 GEARTECHNOLOGY March/April 2011 www.geartechnology.com
the X-axis direction during tooth profile measurement by the
TDG Method, it occurs in both the X-axis and Y-axis direc- Ll Lr
tions of the measuring machine in the NDG Method. The
profile measurement error caused by probe movement er-
ror during measurement therefore differs between the TDG
Method and the NDG Method. The nature of this difference X
was investigated.
Base Circle
In Figure 7, the probe being positioned at A indicates
tooth profile measurement by the TDG Method, and the probe
being positioned at B indicates tooth profile measurement by Figure 4Amount of probe movement by TDG Method.
the NDG Method. Figure 4Amount of probe movement by TDG-Method
eY This means that the tooth profile measurement error of the Base Circle
TDG Method is greater than that of the NDG Method when t
eL exceeds 0.28 eX .
To give a specific example: at eX of 0.2 mm, the TDG
eL
Method becomes greater in measurement error than the NDG Figure 7Measurement error by TDG Method (A) and NDG
Figure 7Measurement Error by TDG-Method (A) and NDG-Method (B)
eL continued Method (B).
www.geartechnology.com March/April 2011 GEARTECHNOLOGY 57
Table 1Specifications of the Developed NDG Measuring Machine
Test Mode profile, lead, pitch
for spur/helical gear, internal gear
with auto alignment system
Machine Size 4,300 x 1,200 x 3,400 mm
Weight 6,000 kg
Measurement 0.1 m
accuracy
Module 1.0 to 32 mm
Outer diameter 2,000 mm
(max)
Face width 1,500 mm
Gear (max)
Helix angle 65 deg
(max)
Shaft length 150 to 2,000 mm
Weight (max) 10,000 kg